


el sol se recuesta

by ricecrispbees



Category: Endless Ocean (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Cavern of the Gods, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Major character death - Freeform, Technically canon-compliant, but in a way also
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:28:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27554626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ricecrispbees/pseuds/ricecrispbees
Summary: accidents happen.oceana reflects on her losses.
Relationships: Michael Carter & Jean-Eric Louvier, Oceana Louvier & Jean-Eric Louvier, Oceana Louvier/Michael Carter, Oceana Louvier/Player Character
Comments: 6
Kudos: 4





	el sol se recuesta

**Author's Note:**

> My character accidentally died when I tried to beat the Cavern of the Gods bit of EO2’s storyline.  
> I cried so hard my parents almost made me stop playing the game.  
> That was in...what, 2012? 2013, maybe? I was only around 9 or 10 years old then. Now here I am a half-year away from legal adulthood, writing about a similar scenario with 0 fucks given and no tears to shed...for now. Funny how time changes people like that.  
> Please enjoy :)
> 
> [(fic name inspiration)](https://youtu.be/jY7H2PU2G2k)  
>  [(fic playlist)](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4HTFESHPJ5GoZzfGvGn65U?si=WUxiDkXeTfW70s-mqmfkSw)

“Wow, Michael,” Oceana turned to the male diver next to her, eyes wide in admiration. “I almost can’t believe what I’m seeing!”

Below them, in a room submerged in water and speckled with pillars that stretched up from far below them, three white whales swam about peacefully. They were beautiful things, colored like pearls and singing amongst one another idly. Michael looked back at her and smiled.

“Neither can I,” He said, breathless with excitement. “I never thought _this_ could possibly be what was behind the Song of Dragons!”

“They’re quite the interesting find,” Hayako mused. She swam down to one of the whales, keeping her distance from it but scrutinizing it carefully. “They look very similar to humpback whales in terms of shape, but judging from their overall appearance it’s likely they’re an entirely different breed. It’s amazing how such creatures can hide from the eyes of humanity for so long.”

“Right? These are dope!” Even GG was as excited by this find as the rest of the group. “Man, I think I have a new favorite animal. We gotta take pictures!” He felt along the pockets and pouches in his BCD and dive bag. “Well, dammit. Do any of y’all got a camera? I think I left mine on the boat.”

“Hey Michael, you carry one, right?” Hayako looked up at him. “You really should photograph this!”

Michael was one step ahead of them, excitedly feeling through the pockets of his BCD to find his camera. He never went diving without it. “Yeah, just a second! We gotta make this quick, though. I think my air is starting to run a teeny bit low.”

“How low, exactly?” GG asked warily. The two ladies looked concerned as well, but Michael shrugged them off.

“Not so low that it’s anything to worry about. I’ll be fine even if we’re down here another twenty minutes or so.” He turned to Hayako and the others, “We should be able to leave freely from here, right?”

Everyone considered this for a moment.

“I think so,” The scientist finally concluded. “Jean-Eric said this room is in the center of the ruins, right? If that’s correct, then this room should be behind the mural we saw when we first entered this place. All we have to do is find the door that bridges the entry to this room, and we should get out of here.”

“Well, that should be no problem,” Oceana remarked. She looked over at Michael. “Let’s just get some pictures of the whales before we go!”

Michael made a face, slipping his hand into a pocket and feeling around inside. “Oh, come _on_!”

“What is it?” Asked Hayako.

“My camera’s not in here either!” The other diver complained. “It must’ve fallen out, then, because I _know_ I brought it with me! Great. Wonderful. Amazing. I’d bought that one not even a month ago, too! _Ugh!_ ” 

“Did you take it out at any point during the dive?” Hayako asked, and Michael thought about this for a moment.

“I did. There was a group of horseshoe crabs hanging out in front of some of the rooms and I took pictures of them. I haven’t seen any of those since I was living in the States!” He paused. “It wasn’t too long after that when I got swept up in that current. I must have dropped it sometime around there. Damn it!”

“Maybe we should go back together and get it,” Oceana suggested. “You’ve got a lot of pictures on it, don’t you? It would seriously be a bummer if you lost it all.”

“Right?” Michael looked over to the other two members of the group. “Would you two be okay if we went back to look for it? I seriously don’t want to just leave that thing behind.”

“Hm...I don’t know,” Said the scientist. “There might be more to this temple that we haven’t seen yet. Not to mention there’s still those goblin sharks swimming around here somewhere.”

Everyone collectively shuddered. The thought of encountering those things again, especially the big bastard that nearly sent them to the man upstairs, didn’t sit right with anybody.

“Well, I’ve still got my pulsar on me,” Michael took it out of its respective pocket in his BCD to demonstrate, “So if nothing else we’ll have those if anything tries to give us trouble. Plus, we could always just come back here. I don’t think the sharks like these ‘singing dragons’ very much.”

One of the whales in the room below made a strange chirping sound. 

“You’re right. They left as soon as one of them entered that bridge-type room over there,” Hayako remarked. “Alright, I guess in that case it’s safe to go, but _please_ be careful and hurry. GG and I will see if there’s anything else of note in this room and then we’ll work on getting us out of here.”

GG looked surprised at this idea of being left alone with her and Michael gave him a thumbs-up.

“Works for me,” Said Oceana, “We’ll see you guys in a bit.”

And with that, she and Michael made their way back up through the Celestial Mausoleum into the other room.

“So, have you been paying attention to how this place is set up?” Michael asked, casting a glance up to the ceiling of the mausoleum as they passed under it.

“Sort of,” replied Oceana. “It’s been hard to tell what’s where thanks to getting blown all over the place by those currents, but I think I have some idea of this temple’s layout. It’s like a big square.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking, too.” Michael poked at a passing coelacanth as they swam down the room of the Pillars of Shadow. It wiggled indignantly as it swam away. “If nothing else, it’s gonna make mapping this on paper a lot easier. People are gonna go crazy over this discovery!”

“I know, right?” Oceana didn’t bother to contain her own excitement and followed closely at Michael’s side. She could hardly believe her luck; not only had she finally closed the mystery her father tried so hard to solve before he died, but she’d done it with the greatest team she could have ever imagined having. Of the three of her dive companions, she greatly admired Hayako’s cool demeanor and intellect and even held some level of respect for GG’s unwavering enthusiasm, but it was Michael who had become her favorite over the several long months they’d spent together. He was the first new friend she’d made in a while. Prior to him joining L&L diving service, she felt as though her only real ‘friend’ was Nancy. It was a very lonely way to live, and so she was very grateful for the constant companionship of the older diver.

Michael didn’t just treat her like a business partner, or like she was just Jean-Eric’s annoying granddaughter. Some mornings he’d come over to where she liked to sit on the dock, review map sales figures and new guide requests with her, and inevitably take the conversation in some completely unrelated direction that would leave them cackling over jokes and stories together. He’d tell her tales about his time in university, and she’d entertain him with jokes she’d read on the internet. One or both of them would sometimes laugh or play-shove the other so hard they’d fall off the dock and into the water below. Jean-Eric would shout at them to _please_ be careful, there are rocks in the shallows you could hurt yourself on here, but there was always a twinkle of mirth in those old hazel eyes as he scolded them.

Oceana couldn’t remember a time before now when she’d been this content with someone.

Every now and again, some part of her brain would bring up the idea of Michael liking her more than platonically. It was weird, and she knew this; he was in his early twenties, while she was only sixteen. Definitely not a good model for a romantic relationship. She knew she’d get in _massive_ trouble with Jean-Eric and possibly even Michael himself if she tried to get things to escalate, so she kept every last thought on that subject to herself, but...well. Sometimes she couldn’t help but wonder if she could turn a high five into holding hands, or if she could get a comforting hug to linger just a few seconds longer. Even now, diving down into the subterranean reception room with him, she offhandedly thought how convenient it would be for something to pop out and scare her so bad she’d just have no other choice but to cling to his side in terror.

Michael’s voice snapped Oceana out of her train of thought.

“I don’t see it down here,” he scanned the floor of the room carefully. “You don’t see it either, do you?”

“Huh? Oh,” she remembered the real reason they were alone together now and shook her head. “nothing out of the ordinary or otherwise camera-shaped here.”

“ _Ugh_ ,” the other diver groaned and began ascending into the room with the Isis statue inside, his flippers narrowly avoiding a passing nautilus. “so maybe I did drop it in the hallway after all.”

“With luck, maybe the current swept the camera down closer to this room,” Oceana offered, remembering there was a dead-end wall not far from the staircase bridging the altar room and the hallway.

“If the current is still going at all.” Michael swam up to the threshold and stuck his hand out into the hallway. His arm was pushed back like it might rip off and he pulled it back in. “Yep. Still going, and I don’t see it on the floor here anywhere.”

“Aw,” Oceana looked over the floor herself and, sure enough, found it was devoid of Michael’s beloved waterproof camera. “I’m sorry, Michael.”

“‘S fine. We’ll just make another dive down to get it.”

“Should we go back to Hayako and GG now?”

“Yeah,” Michael sighed. “ _Dammit_. I had some really good shots on it, too! You would have loved to see them. There was this one with a pineconefish, I know you like those so I tried to get a few of them in the frame, and it turned out really cool and--”

Oceana listened to Michael’s despaired rambling for several moments, flattered that he would have thought to take time out of his dive to photograph some fish just for _her_. “That was really sweet of you, dude, but you didn’t have to do it.” she said, smiling. 

Michael turned to her and smiled that goofy puppy-dog smile he always wore when they were swapping stories. “Of course I did! You’re like my little sister, man. Anything to make you happy!”  
‘Like my little sister’. _Ouch_.

Oceana grinned back and pretended like those words hadn’t just smacked her clean across the face.

»»————- ————-««

Meanwhile, back in the room with the whales, GG and Hayako were somewhere between struggling and having the time of their lives.

“These things are so cool!” GG shouted down at the scientist, attempting to hold onto the side of one of the white whales. Hayako, who had been inspecting the intricate designs carved and painted upon the walls, looked up at him with disdain.

“I don’t think they like being touched, GG,” She warned, and as if on cue, the whale bucked its back upward, sending GG soaring up towards the ceiling. 

“Ack!” He narrowly avoided crashing into a pillar and shook his head. The singing dragon he’d been trying to hold onto made a sound not unlike a chuff. “Yeah, I think you’re right. See anything interesting down there?”

“Hmm,” Hayako gave the mural she’d been staring at a second glance. It was very old and faded, but she thought she could make out the outlines of people worshipping some kind of idol. “There’s another mural down here, but I can’t tell what’s on it.”

“That’s a shame.” GG remarked, moving out of a wayward jellyfish’s path. “Maybe that one might have had a clue on how we can get out of here.”

“If worse comes to worst, we could always just retrace our steps and go the long way,” Hayako pointed out, giving the wall in front of her another once-over.

“But there’s still that current keeping us from getting out,” the other diver replied. “I don’t think those are going to let up any time soon.”

The scientist cursed. “Of course. How could I forget about that?” She turned to look up at GG. “See if there’s anything in that room with the statues that could open the door.”

“I’m on it!” GG gave her a mock salute and swam back up to the Celestial Mausoleum. Hayako rolled her eyes. His eagerness to please--among _many_ other things--made him pretty annoying, but she was grateful he wasn’t fully incompetent.

Though GG was just as anxious to find a way out as Hayako was, he was only slightly more interested by the menagerie of shinies in the room the Singing Dragon had opened. As he ascended up into the Celestial Mausoleum, he could see flashes of gold peeking through the doorway of the Pacifica Treasure room, and he grinned. The stuff in there was probably worth a fortune! With the cash he and the rest of L&L could make from salvaging the place, they’d all be filthy rich!

“Holy _shit_ ,” GG realized with a dopey grin, “I might even be able to pay off my student loan debts now!”

It was at that moment, just before he was to enter the room containing the Pacifica Treasure, that he stopped to give more than a moment’s glance to the structures near the middle of the room. There were three statues Michael had used to open the door into the other room with the whales, but now that he was paying closer attention it looked like there was another usable structure here too.

“Hey, doc!” GG called to her through the radio, “There’s some kind of wheel-lookin’ thing up here! Do you think that might be our way out?”

Hayako thought about this for a moment and swam up to where GG was. “Now that you mention it, that _does_ look like a wheel.” She remarked, unsure of how she or the other two divers they were with hadn’t called attention to it earlier. “Let’s try pushing on it. It should open the door to the exit from here.”

The other diver gave her a thumbs up and attempted to rotate the pedestal clockwise. It wouldn’t budge, but GG felt like it would give with just a _little_ bit more effort. “Gimme a hand, doc!”

Hayako considered for a moment thumping him on the forehead for not using her name like any normal person would but decided against it. She instead wordlessly held onto one of the spokes of the pedestal and pushed it in sync with GG, happy to know that the extra manpower was all it took to get it moving. The pedestal made a deep rumbling noise as it rotated. The pair pushed it in a circle a few times and then stopped.

“Do you think it did anything?” GG asked after a few seconds went by without anything happening.

“Well, I suppose there’s only one way to—“ Hayako was cut off by the sound of a loud, reverberating whistle echoing throughout the temple. It sounded similar to the earlier tune the Dragon Flute had played, but this one played for several more seconds, long and drawn out in comparison to the short notes of the original. The whales in the other room began to make a strange whining noise.

“Uh…” GG looked nervously over at the other diver. “Is it just me, or does the Song of Dragons sound different now?”

“It’s not just you,” Hayako affirmed, looking around nervously. Nothing was visibly different and that concerned her. “That was close to being a different tune entirely.”

In the room below them, the whales briefly echoed the song the pedestal had played. It was, in a way, almost like a flock of parrots mimicking a noise. Then, right after they’d finished their singing, the first whale smashed its head against the wall, the sound of the impact ringing out with a deafening crack. The mausoleum began to shake, and Hayako and GG looked at one another nervously. Both parties were too shocked to say anything, but at this point it went without saying: it looked as thought they’d fucked up, big time.

»»————- ————-««

“Did you hear that?”

Oceana strained her ears to listen. “Hear what?”

Michael shushed her. “It sounded almost like the Song of Dragons, but something was...off.” He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you _didn’t_ hear it!”

“Uh…” Truthfully, Oceana had been a bit spaced out a few moments ago, but she could vaguely recall hearing something in the background of her daydreaming, so she nodded. “Yeah, I think I know what you mean.”

“That’s weird. I wonder if Hayako and GG managed to open that door.” Michael glanced into the corridor and stuck his arm back out into the water again. “Hey, look! The current stopped!”

“Woah, really?!” Oceana cautiously stuck her head around the corner and sure enough, the water in the hallway had gone stagnant. “No way! We can go look for your camera now!”

“Yess!” Michael held up both hands and Oceana high-fived him. “And from here, it’s basically a straight shot out to the exit!”

“Hallelujah for that,” Oceana sighed. She didn’t know what she’d do if they had to go through some sort of maze of corridors to get out. “Lead the way, then.”

Michael had just made it a few feet down the hallway when the pair heard another noise that made them stop dead in their tracks. “Hey, that sounds like--”

“The singing dragons themselves?” Oceana finished. They looked at one another. 

“They weren’t that loud earlier, were they?” Michael started to ask, only to be cut off by a deafening crack of something against stone. It rang out once, twice, and eventually fell into a pattern of hard bumps and thuds so strong it shook the entire hallway.

Oceana turned on her radio. “Hayako! GG! What’s going on over there?!”

Hayako and GG looked down into the room with the whales.

“I don’t believe it!” GG’s eyes widened. All three of the whales had turned on the temple, banging their heads into the pillars and walls with such force that it was comparable to an earthquake.  
  
Hayako said into her radio, “We tried turning that pedestal in the center of the room to get out of here, but I don’t think that was what we were supposed to do.”

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock!” Michael interjected, flinching in shock as a few stones began to break away from the ceiling and fall to the floor. “Ack! Oceana, look out!”

Oceana looked up just in time to notice the sizable rock about to hit her on the head. Michael grabbed her by the arm and yanked her away.

“We’ve gotta get out of here!” He said, visibly trying not to panic any more than he already had.

Static buzzed in the ears of all four divers as Jean-Eric attempted to radio them.

“H--ello??” The transmission was already spotty enough being this far down, but it seemed as though the violent shaking of the temple was only making it worse. “W--hat's going on down th--ere?”

Hayako’s hands were shaking as she tried to operate her radio. “We may or may not have upset the whales and now they’ve gone berserk! They’re bashing their heads against the walls over and over!” She looked over at GG who looked equally as shaken as her. “Do you think it’s safe to go check on the door?”

GG sighed. “I don’t suppose we’ve got a choice.”

Michael swallowed down bile as he listened in on the conversation. “You’re hearing this too, right?” He asked Oceana. She nodded, holding onto his arm for dear life.

“At this rate…” Jean-Eric’s voice was becoming progressively more difficult to make out, “You maybe have...15 minutes...temple’s collapsing…hurry!”

“We’re on it, grandpa!” Oceana said, panic creeping into the edges of her voice. “Michael, what do we do?!”

“Calm down, Oceana,” He reassured her. “Let’s just get to the entrance, make sure GG and Hayako are alright, and then we’ll get out of here. Easy! It won’t even take us five minutes!”

The other diver smiled. Michael was so confident, it was hard not to blindly believe what he was saying, but they were still in an unfamiliar ruins, and it wasn’t clear what if any obstacles still remained in their way to deal with. Even so, Oceana decided that until a better solution crossed their path, she’d follow what her friend said if it’s what it took to get out of this place. 

“Alrighty, then,” She said, “Lead the way.”

»»————- ————-««

“You have _got_ to be kidding me.”

After dodging a number of falling chunks of temple, angry whales, and a handful of jellyfish nearly as long as GG was tall, he and Hayako had finally made it to the floor of the room only to find that the pedestal did not in fact open the door.

“No,” Even Hayako’s cool demeanor was starting to crack. “No, no, no, this can’t be happening!” She tried to take a few breaths to steady herself but they came out more like hyperventilations. “GG, _please_ tell me I’m having some kind of stroke right now.”

“I only wish, doc,” The other replied, staring blankly at the wall. “I only wish.”

“There’s gotta be another way to open this thing!” The scientist flinched as something bonked her on the head. “Hey!” She shook her head and something fell down past her face; a small rock, no larger than perhaps a chunk of gravel one might find lining a shoddy backroad. “Oh, lovely. So the place really is falling apart.”

“Ain’t that lovely,” GG grumbled. “Just when we discovered the greatest archeological find of the century, we had to go and fuck it up.”

The two divers sat there, dumbstruck, as the whales continued to go apeshit on the columns above them. 

“I’m sorry,” GG suddenly blurted out.

“Sorry?” Hayako raised her eyebrows. “For what?”

“For just...for being such an ass to you and Oceana and Jean-Eric and Michael!” 

Hayako stared blankly in his direction so GG continued, “I just...you know, I can’t help but feel like I’ve turned this whole Pacifica Treasure gig into a straight-up pissing contest, you know. Like, the way I met L&L in the first place was because I saw some other divers back in Greece and I decided I’d challenge them to find Valka’s Castle. I never would have guessed this was where it would have led to.” He looked up, watching a couple Commerson’s dolphins swim about in a panic as the whales continued their assault on the temple. “And even recently, I know I haven’t been the nicest to you ‘n the others. Sometimes I just act a bit full of myself, you know?”

“Oh, I noticed,” Hayako returned calmly. GG looked hurt. “But it’s alright, all things considered. If it weren’t for you, I don’t think we would have found this place at all. You were a capital help to all of us.”

“Thanks, but...I think that’s kind of the problem, me being why we’re here and all,” GG brushed the fine layer of silt accumulating on his shoulders off. He sighed. “I just...I don’t know. It felt like I had to say sorry if this was really the end.”

Hayako smiled at him. “That’s sweet,” She said, reaching over to squeeze his upper arm in reassurance. “I accept your apology.”

GG smiled back. Above them, one of the whales made a long, low call of distress as it continued to ram into one of the pillars.

“Jean-Eric said we had fifteen minutes,” GG said. “How long has it been, do you think?”

Hayako checked the waterproof watch on her wrist. “We’ve still got ten minutes left,” She said, looking back at the door with determination in her eyes. “And that’s ten minutes we need to put towards getting this thing open.”

»»————- ————-««

“Deep breaths, Oceana,” the female diver reminded herself as she and Michael cautiously began their swim down the hallway. The cavern continued to shake violently around them. “Michael, see if you can’t get in touch with the other two again.”

Michael attempted to operate his radio. “Hey, Hayako? GG? Are you two alright?”

He listened for a moment, but all he got was static.

“Shit. I think the tremors are interfering with everyone’s signals now.”

“Well,” Oceana dodged yet another collapsing piece of the ceiling, “at least we’re almost out of here.”

Michael hummed noncommittally. Out of the corner of her eye, Oceana noticed the gauge on the other’s air tank as he swam ahead of her. “The corner room is just up ahead. Once we get around that--”

“Michael--” Oceana cut him off, “your air is almost out!”

The other diver stopped to check his air levels and his eyes went wide.

“Oh, _fuck_ .” He muttered. “Shit.” If his calculations were correct, he had five minutes’ worth of air left. _‘I knew I should’ve bought that new tank from Nancy,’_ he thought in despair.

“Go, go, go,” Oceana urged, the pair picking up the pace in unison. This hallway, she thought, felt a _lot_ longer than it looked. They entered the square room built into the corner and were just about to turn when something made Michael pause.

“What is it?” Oceana asked, trying not to let irritation slip into her voice. Now was _not_ the time for a distraction, especially now that parts of the temple ceiling were beginning to break off in increasingly bigger chunks.

Michael pointed to something in the corner and the other diver squinted. It certainly didn’t look like anything else in the place. In fact, it almost looked like--

“Your camera,” she gasped. Michael nodded in excitement. 

“I’ll be quick,” he promised, trying to hurry and conserve his air as he began to swim towards the camera. Oceana shook her head violently.

“Are you crazy?!” The Cavern of the Gods was literally falling apart around them. How Michael could find it in him to care for literally anything else but escaping at that point was beyond her. 

“I said I’ll be _quick_ ,” Michael reiterated in irritation, and began to swim down to where it sat.

“Michael…” Oceana warned, looking about at the shaking walls of the temple. “Now’s _really_ not a good--”

Michael cut her off when he picked up the camera, holding it victoriously above his head.

“See? I told you it would be fine!” He said, waving it about as if to show it off. “Now, let’s hurry up and--”

A particularly strong tremor shook the temple. Above them, the ceiling began to audibly break apart, making both divers flinch. Oceana looked up just in time to witness a large chunk of stone break away from the rest of the ceiling.

“Michael,” She shouted, “Look out!”

Michael looked up to see what was the matter. It only took a second to do, just a blip in time lasting shorter than a blink, but it was an instant that should have gone towards getting the hell out of there.

“ _Michael!_ ” Oceana cried out again, eyes widening in horror as the rock struck her friend on the head.

The last thing Michael saw was the terrified look in his best friend’s eyes through her goggles as he sunk helplessly onto the floor of the temple. 

»»————- ————-««

“There’s got to be something we can use to open this,” Hayako asserted for the third time now, feeling around the frame of the door.

GG groaned in frustration. “I’m not so sure anymore, doc.”

“Don’t you dare get like that,” the scientist grumbled, “Please, there’s no way I’m just going to let us die here!”

The other diver was about to return with something smart when the radio began to buzz with static.

“ _GG...Hayako…?_ ”

“Jean-Eric? Is that you?” GG asked, breathing a massive sigh of relief internally. Perhaps he might have some advice on how to get out of here!

The radio buzzed for a moment.

“ _To...right...cr…the wall…_ ”

“What’s that?” Hayako turned up the volume on her radio slightly. “I can’t understand you!”

GG looked to the right of the door, where a large crack ran down the wall. “I think he means that, Hayako.”

“Eh? What about it?” She asked, furrowing her eyebrows. “Looks just like a regular crack to me.”

The sound of static suddenly increased so sharply both divers thought they might go deaf.

“ _...nside...cre…hidden..._ ”

Hayako and GG stared at one another, dumbfounded.

“Well?” she finally said, “Look inside the crack! There might be something in there!”

“Jesus, alright,” GG grumbled, swimming closer to the break in the wall. It appeared to be large enough to peek inside, and sure enough, if he squinted he could just barely make out the outline of something metallic hidden within.

“Hey, would you look at that!” He remarked. “It looks like there’s some kind of mechanism!”

“That must be what Jean-Eric was talking about!” Hayako said. “Though how he knew it was in there was beyond me...”

“Never mind that!” GG said, “Alright, Jean-Eric, we found the thing. What next?”

The radio mumbled something.

“What was that?”

Around them, the temple continued to shake. Another whale cried out in distress before resuming its vicious assault on the temple’s pillars.

“ _Push...switch…_ ”

GG attempted to reach through and grab at whatever was inside. Unfortunately, however, it appeared his hand was too large to fit inside. The ragged edges of the crevice threatened to tear open his diving gloves as he pulled away.

“Hayako, you try it,” He said. Hayako attempted to slide her hand inside to push the switch as well, but she couldn’t get her hand to fit, either.

“It’s no good,” She groaned, “my hand isn’t small enough!”

“Damn it!” GG cursed, “If only we had Oceana with us. I think she’d be small enough to squeeze her hand through.”

“ _Hayako...your hand…_ ” The voice on the radio interrupted them.

“What about it?” She asked, looking up at GG as if he’d know anything about it. He looked her over for a moment.

“Isn’t that the rock that fell on your head earlier?” He asked, pointing at the thing she was holding in her left hand.

“Oh,” Hayako opened her palm and sure enough, there was a piece of stone cradled within it. “I guess I’ve been holding onto it this whole time, huh?”

GG looked at her, then at the crevice in the wall. “Use it to push the switch!”

“What?”  
“I think that’s what Jean-Eric’s trying to get us to do, anyway. Come on, do you have a better idea?”

Hayako quickly realized she did not and shrugged.

“It’s worth a shot,” she said before shoving the rock into the crevice. She pushed it all the way inside until they heard a click and the door in front of them began to slide open.

“No way,” GG stared, “That actually worked?!”

“Jean-Eric, we seriously owe you one!” Hayako cheered. “Let’s go get Michael and Oceana! I’ll bet they’re already waiting for us outside at this rate!”

Just then, one of the whales delivered a particularly devastating blow to the wall. The two divers heard the sounds of several large cracks forming in the temple’s walls and ceiling and Hayako was sure she’d never swum faster in her whole life. Thankfully, the exit was straight ahead, and she and GG made it out in record time. 

“Whew!” She sighed with relief as soon as the two of them made it past the threshold of the temple.

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” GG reminded her. From here, they could still feel the tremors of the whales beating on the temple walls. “There’s a chance this open area could collapse as well.” He looked around. “Where are the other two?”

Hayako fiddled with her radio for a bit. “Hello? Michael? Oceana?” She paused. The only response she got was the warble of static. “Damn. I’m getting nothing on their end. It’s probably like you said. They must have gotten out of here before we did and are waiting for us on the boat right now.”

“Well, then, what are we waiting for?” GG asked. The two took great care to avoid any falling debris as they exited the cave, surfacing quickly but carefully to avoid hurting themselves.

The moment GG hauled himself on board the rental boat, he realized he and Hayako did yet another bad thing.

“Where’s Oceana and Michael?” Jean-Eric asked, sitting on one of the benches and watching the other two divers strip of their gear.

Hayako and GG froze, the latter scanning the boat again and again to make sure he was seeing things right. 

“You said they were up here already,” GG said to Hayako slowly, his heart dropping into his stomach.

Hayako looked equally nervous. “I-I just thought--”

“Don’t tell me you two just _left_ them down there!” Jean-Eric’s expression went from confused to furious in an instant.

“We didn’t mean to!” GG held up his hands in surrender. “We couldn’t get through on anyone’s radios and thought maybe they were up here already!”

“You have _got_ to be kidding,” Jean-Eric groaned, immediately going over to the radio to try and get in touch with the two again, “How could you both be so reckless?!”

“Uhh…” GG and Hayako looked at one another again, thoroughly at a loss for words. Once again, they’d fucked up. They’d fucked up _so_ badly that they’d both probably be out of a job after this. “I’m sure they’ll surface soon!” GG supplied nervously, trying not to let his voice waver.

Jean-Eric was about to shout at them again when, ironically enough, the two missing divers did exactly that. The sound of water breaking was enough to direct the three’s attention to the side of the ship, but it was what followed that only furthered everyone’s panic.

“Grandpa! _Grandpa!_ ” Oceana screamed desperately, clawing at the water’s surface. She struggled to remove her dive mask while treading water with one hand, ripping it off her head frantically and chucking it onto the ship’s deck. “I need help! _Please_!”

“Oceana?!” Jean-Eric, GG, and Hayako rushed to the side of the boat to find her nearly in hysterics, something significantly bigger than her tucked under the other arm. Jean-Eric couldn’t tell what it was at first. The weight of it was such that it threatened to sink Oceana. As his eyes focused more closely on the sight in front of him, Jean-Eric’s stomach sunk to his feet as he realized just what he was seeing. 

“Oh my god,” He gasped, “what _happened_?!” He and GG immediately worked to pull them out of the water, Oceana attempting to hold Michael up enough for them to get a grasp on him. He wasn’t moving and in fact seemed to be totally unaware that he was being manhandled at all, his dark eyes staring off into space and wide with shock. A large, unsightly gash tore open the side of his head and was, by some metric, still dripping blood after spending so much time underwater. There was even a dent in his air tank where Jean-Eric assumed something must have fallen on him.

“I don’t know,” Oceana forced out between sobs. Her arms shook violently as she pulled herself on board. “I don’t know, we were almost out of the cavern and he found his camera and went to go get it and then it just--” she burst out sobbing, falling to her knees on the deck of the boat and shaking under the weight of her terror. GG and Jean-Eric laid Michael’s unconscious body down on the deck and stripped him of his diving equipment until they could lay him flat on his back. He didn’t appear to be breathing, and his eyes were glazed over. Jean-Eric felt for a pulse.

“Get the phone and call for paramedics. Oh my god,” he said, starting to tremble as he moved his hand from Michael’s wrist to his neck. “I don’t feel a pulse.”

“Start CPR, then!” GG said, scrambling to dial the emergency services’ number with shaking hands. Jean-Eric nodded and began chest compressions, with Oceana watching all this unfold on her knees, terrified. GG held the phone to his ear, unable to contain his own terror at this point. “Hello!?...We need help, we were diving just now and one of our divers is unresponsive…!”

Hayako directed her attention onto Jean-Eric, kneeling by Michael’s side to check his vitals again. 

“Still no pulse or breathing,” Jean-Eric huffed out between labored breaths. “27, 28, 29, 30. Give him two mouthfuls of oxygen.”

Hayako nodded and did as instructed. Michael’s chest weakly rose from the force of it before the older man resumed CPR.

“Jean-Eric, the responder wants to talk to you,” GG said, attempting to hand the man his phone.

“Put them on speaker!”

What followed was a blur of tears and phone calls and emergency service workers arriving by boat. The gash in Michael’s head bled almost completely through the towel Hayako tried to stop it with, and the excess mixed into the sea water gathered on the boat’s deck, diluting it until it was a pale red.

‘ _Like watercolor paint_ .’ Oceana thought through agonized sobs, shuddering at the morbid thought. The fact that there’d been any blood left in him after they surfaced was a miracle in itself; between that and what he was losing now, his chances of survival had to be next to none. She was beginning to feel dizzy between the sounds of Grandpa talking to EMS and the sight of Michael’s pale body-- _pale_ , in a way that was abnormal for such a thoroughly tanned man--being hoisted onto a stretcher. The sickeningly potent smell of salt and iron and death hung in the air so heavily that it overwhelmed her, and soon Oceana felt too overwhelmed even to cry anymore. 

“They’re taking him to a hospital on the mainland, right? The one not too far from where the hotel is?” She could barely make out the sounds of her grandpa talking with the other two divers before she heard an awful, deafeningly loud ringing noise in both ears. Jean-Eric turned to his granddaughter only to find her collapsed onto the deck and shuddering like she was freezing to death. “Oceana?” He called, rushing to her side, “Oceana, are you alright?”

His granddaughter could barely look up at him now. “Grandpa?” She asked, thinking for a moment that she could make out the face of the person in front of her, but everything felt like it was spinning all of a sudden so it was hard to tell. She didn’t recognize any of the people on the boat with her, and every time she tried to sit up, she couldn’t find the strength within her to do so. It was like her body was just shutting down.

Jean-Eric’s face went pale. “No,” He murmured, “No, no, no...Hey, _hey!_ ” He shouted at the paramedics just as their boat was about to pull away from them, “There’s a problem here! My granddaughter--”

That was the last thing Oceana could understand clearly before her hearing succumbed to the ringing, drowning out the world around her as she closed her eyes.

»»————- ————-««

The following days were a blur of hospital beds, decompression chambers, and oxygen tanks. So many oxygen tanks.

On her second visit to the decompression chamber, Oceana found herself able to talk to the nurse.

“How are you feeling?” the woman, an older Arab who spoke kindly to her, asked. To Oceana, she sounded as though she was speaking from meters away despite being right in front of her. 

Oceana simply shrugged to the best of her ability. “Everything hurts,” she moaned, which was the only coherent thought she’d been able to express since her hospitalization. The nurse stared blankly at her for a few moments.

“Hopefully,” she said with optimism, stepping out of the chamber to start Oceana’s oxygen therapy, “You will feel better soon after this.”

Unsurprisingly, however, she did not.

  
  


Michael was dead. 

Jean-Eric had told her as much on the fifth day of her hospitalization, when her cognition had improved enough from the therapy that she could see and and hear and gesticulate with relative ease again. There was still a horrible ringing noise in her ears, but the doctors said there wasn’t much that could be done about that at this point, so she was going to have to learn to put up with it now. Tinnitus, they called it, an auditory problem that usually happened alongside some form of hearing loss.

Oceana had asked her grandfather what room Michael was in as soon as she remembered what had happened to bring her there, and Jean-Eric just broke down. It made Oceana’s heart hurt. She’d never seen her grandfather in such anguish, not since the day they discovered the wreckage where her father had passed away.

Though she was still too weak to walk unassisted by this point, and still struggled with tasks as basic as sitting up in bed by herself, she still tried to reach over and hold her grandfather’s hand.

“I’m so sorry, Oceana,” Jean-Eric sobbed, wiping tears from his eyes with one hand. “I didn’t think..God, how did it all go so _wrong_?”

“I don’t know,” Oceana mumbled in reply. Everything was hurting so badly she couldn’t even cry with him anymore. Her muscles were screaming at her, wrecked from the nitrogen bubbles that had seeped in from her blood. Her stomach ached because she lacked the energy to eat the meals the nurses brought to her beyond a bite or two, and she felt her body growing thinner by the day beneath her hospital gown. 

In the end, though, it was her heart that hurt the most.

It strained under the effort of pumping nonstop to keep her failing body alive. It hurt more for her beloved best friend Michael. 

It hurt because he was gone for good, because she’d never see him again. 

Because her love for him would have to remain unrequited forever.

And the worst part? It was all over thanks to a stupid mistake she could have prevented herself had she just said something a _little bit sooner_ , if she’d tried just a little harder to convince Michael to stop. If she’d grabbed him by the BCD and dragged him from the Cavern of the Gods herself, or snapped at him to leave the camera and risked him being furious with her for it, things would be different. She wished so badly she could go back and do anything, anything at all, as long as it meant that Michael was still _alive_. 

“You know…” Jean-Eric paused after the two had sat in painful silence for long enough and went through his bag to get something. He pulled out a smaller drawstring bag in his lap and Oceana tried weakly to sit up and see it better. “We found this inside his BCD. I don’t know how it got there, especially after the story you told us about what happened, but...I think you should have it.”

He held it out to Oceana and she took it, pulling open the drawstrings to reveal…

“Michael’s camera,” she gasped. With a shaking hand, she pulled it out of the bag. It was horribly banged up and she wondered for a moment if it was even usable anymore, but nonetheless, there was something comforting about having it with her. 

“Oh my god,” she said, unable to find any other words.

“I had Hayako try to recover the images on it, since you know I’m no good with stuff like that. You younglings these days with all your newfangled machines,” He said in an exaggeratedly grumpy voice with a wave of his hand. Despite the situation, it made Oceana giggle, the first time she’d done so since before the dive. Jean-Eric smiled fondly at her.

“Anyway, she said that while some of the photos were corrupted or something to that effect, most of them were salvaged without a problem.” He paused. “He was such a wonderful photographer. I’ll try and get some of them printed out for you.”

Oceana remembered Michael telling her about the picture he’d taken just for her and wondered if that one had been saved, too.

“Pardon me, Mr. Louvier, but visiting hours are fifteen minutes past over,” A nurse poked her head around the doorway and said. 

Jean-Eric looked at his granddaughter, so tiny and sickly pale as she laid in the hospital bed. The nasal cannula strung across her face made her look skeletal, and the dark circles under her eyes were only growing worse. IVs were stuck into her hands and arms and there was even one in the form of a picc line at her chest. If one looked at her without knowing any better they might assume that the only thing keeping her alive was the menagerie of machines surrounding her bed.

“Oceana…” He started, but the sight of her in that hospital bed overwhelmed him so much he couldn’t get any words out. She smiled up at him.

“‘S okay, grandpa,” Oceana slurred out, “You should go back to the hotel. I’ll be fine here. I love you.”

Jean-Eric bit the inside of his cheek to keep from crying again. He’d done plenty of that for the day already. “I love you too, Oceana,” He said, leaning down to kiss her on the forehead. “Get some good rest tonight, okay?”

Oceana murmured an affirmative and nodded. She leaned back against the pillow, spent both emotionally and physically, and Jean-Eric knew he couldn’t let himself stay any longer. He turned away from her and followed the nurse out of the room, risking one final glance over his shoulder to see his granddaughter staring out the room’s window.

Outside, darkness began to creep over the small Egyptian town like a blanket. Oceana saw the sunset, just where the ocean met the sky and created a palette of colors, and she closed her eyes, lazily running her thumb over the side of Michael’s camera. The sun was resting now. It was time for her to do the same.

»»————- ————-««

Nineball Island was a lot quieter these days.

It was just her and Grandpa now, and Snorkel, the dog Michael had found and subsequently adopted on behalf of the whole company. He was beginning to grow on Oceana, someone who’d never been particularly fond of dogs before she met Snorkel. He’d rest his soft head in her lap when she sat out on the dock, watching the waves roll in the distance and listening to the faint buzzing noises of water on water.

There was a small space Jean-Eric and her had set up, dedicated to Michael’s memory, just next to the spot where the guitar he’d impulsively bought once sat. It was a humble little thing, just a wooden crate with a framed photo and some artificial candles that the wind couldn’t blow out sitting on top of it, but she knew Michael would probably appreciate it anyhow. More recently, Oceana had decided to make a photo album of the images on the camera he’d left behind, and that sat on the crate as well.

Unfortunately, however, the memorial would have to come down along with the rest of her and grandpa’s personal belongings. The cost of Oceana’s decompression illness treatment and everything that came with it was nauseating, and after the fiasco back in Egypt, Jean-Eric had decided it would be better if they found somewhere else to live away from the painfully bittersweet memories Nineball would bring back.

“Besides,” He’d reasoned with his granddaughter, who looked ready to cry at the news when he broke it to her, “With the amount people would be willing to pay for this place, we’ll be able to pay off our debt in no time. There are plenty of other places for us than here, I’m sure.” 

Knowing she’d have to give up the island where she’d spent nearly all her life hurt her terribly, but Oceana agreed with a squeeze to her grandfather’s hands that it was what had to be done.

 _They’ll only be put away for a moment,_ Oceana reassured herself as she knelt by the opened crate and placed the items inside. She turned off the plastic candles and set them on top of the photo album. She took care to put the beat-up camera into a spot particularly lush with packing peanuts, but when she got to the framed photo she couldn’t help but hesitate.

In the frame, there was a printed photo from shortly after Michael first joined L&L Diving Service. In the original image, it was of him standing on Jean-Eric’s boat after his first dive with Oceana in Gatama Atoll. He and Oceana were still drenched with seawater, grinning and laughing. One of Michael’s arms was slung over his dive partner’s shoulder and the other was around Jean-Eric’s. The three of them smiled as Oceana held up the camera, photographing this milestone moment for the company.

Within the confines of this frame, however, it was a close up of just Michael’s smiling face, framed with matted wet hair and a galaxy’s worth of freckles on his cheeks. Oceana felt her throat start to close up again.

Snorkel whined faintly and nudged her leg with his nose.

“I know, bub,” she murmured, rubbing behind his ear without so much as glancing up from the photograph. “I miss him too.”

She was about to set the frame in the box when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

“Oh,” Oceana looked up. “Hey.”

Jean-Eric said something she couldn’t quite make out. 

“Huh?”

Her grandpa sighed and held something out to her.

“Ah. Whoops,” Oceana picked up her hearing aids and put them in. With a bit of tuning, she could hear the waves of the ocean around her a lot more clearly. “Sorry.”

“Oceana,” Jean-Eric looked exhausted. He hadn’t looked _not_ exhausted since...well, before the accident, his granddaughter realized. By now, the sight of his wrinkle-lined face and dark eye bags had become regular to her. “You really shouldn’t just leave those around like that.”

“I know, grandpa. I’m sorry.” Oceana hated her hearing aids. They were uncomfortable and clunky and she hated having to put them in. Every noise she heard with them had a faint staticky quality to it. Jean-Eric had mentioned the possibility of buying better ones with the leftover money from selling the island, so she at least had that to look forward to, but for now she detested them. In her mind’s eye, they were a testament to the fatal mistake she’d committed over a year ago, and she didn’t appreciate having to wear that reminder for all to see even if it did benefit her.

Jean-Eric looked as though he was about to say something but stopped when he saw what his granddaughter was packing. His eyes fell on the framed photo of Michael.

“You know,” he said slowly, “I believe Michael once said to me that that was his favorite photo.”

“Really?” Oceana asked, looking back down at it. 

Jean-Eric nodded, kneeling down next to her. “Yes. He actually had a smaller version of it printed to keep in his wallet at one point.” He paused. “Did he never tell you?”

Oceana shook her head. Oddly enough, Michael was a bit weird when it came to the subject of his photographs. He never liked to talk about the shots he thought were his favorite in-depth much and always liked to change the subject when favorites came up; in his words, he felt that “it’s too much like bragging to point out a photo and say that ‘oh, I like this one the most.’ Feels kinda like shoving it in your face that _I_ took this photo and it’s just _so cool_ so now you have to see it too, you know?”

“Hm. Well, you know what he said to me once when we talked about it?”

“What, grandpa?” Oceana tilted her head to the side, excited and intrigued.

“He said,” Jean-Eric pointed at her with a smile, “that he loved this photo the most not just for the sentimental value, but because _you_ took it.”

“Wh-what?!” Oceana felt her face go hot and her heart start to pound in her chest. She thought she’d gotten better about having repressed the feelings she’d had for Michael now that he’d died, but apparently she wasn’t doing as great a job of it as expected. “Stop teasing, grandpa! He’d never say something like that!”

Jean-Eric smiled sadly at her. “Oceana, don’t be so hard on yourself. Michael _adored_ you; surely you knew that?”

Adored. The word sent a feeling of warmth through Oceana’s body and she smiled giddily. 

“Really?” she asked, trying not to sound too hopeful. 

“Really,” her grandpa replied. “I know you had feelings for him, you know. Don’t give me that look. It was obvious to me at least.”

“...do you think it was to him?” Oceana asked quietly, looking back down at the picture in her hands.

“Maybe,” Jean-Eric shrugged. “I’m sure he suspected it at one point or another.”

Oceana felt her stomach turn at that. Something about knowing Michael knew, or may have known that she loved him when he was still alive...it unsettled her. She couldn’t quite point why.

“What’s the matter?” A familiar hand rested itself on Oceana’s shoulder. “You know you can talk to your old man if there’s a problem, Oceana.”

“I know, grandpa,” the other replied, “I just...I dunno,” Tears brimmed in the corner of her pale eyes. “I hope he didn’t know. It’d have made things a little weird.”

Jean-Eric hummed in thought. “I see what you mean.”

Oceana sniffled. “‘S making me emotional, talking about all this. I _miss_ him, Grandpa.”

It was the first real loss she’d experienced since her mother’s death, Oceana realized, and that had happened when she was very young. As awful as it felt to admit, she didn’t feel terrible after her mother’s passing. Not like this, anyway. She’d been just a tad too young to process the concept of death, and even when she did mourn the loss of her parents, she hadn’t retained very many memories of them to grieve by.

Michael, on the other hand…she’d spent nearly two straight years at this man’s side. She’d had countless conversations and been on more dives than she could remember with his goofy, charismatic, intelligent self. Oceana adored him and treasured every second they spent together, even when they disagreed and fought and had awkward moments that left them avoiding one another for short interludes of their day. In the end, it was Michael’s death of all the losses she’d dealt with that had left a truly gaping wound in her chest. The worst part was that it wasn’t healing anytime soon even after all this time, she realized as she clutched the framed photo tightly to her chest as memories of her lost love’s time with her began to play over in her head. 

It _hurt._

_Why did it all have to hurt so badly?_

Jean-Eric silently wrapped an arm around his granddaughter’s shoulder as she began to cry. If he cried silently along with her, she was none the wiser.

Snorkel rested his head in her lap with a whine.

When they’d both finished, the sun had gone from hanging halfway above the horizon to three-fourths of the way down. Oceana wiped the salty remains of tears off her face, looking down at the framed image one last time before putting it away in the box with the rest of the memorial items.

“It’s getting late,” she noted aloud. The sky was painted orange and pink, and the air was growing chilly. “Help me get this last box on the boat?”

Jean-Eric smiled. “Of course,” he said. _‘Anything for my pride and joy.’_

Save for the humble shack situated in its center and the few palm trees scattered about it, Nineball Island was empty now. It looked almost untouched, as if no one had ever been here at all. 

All that was left for Oceana to do here was leave.

Jean-Eric stepped onto the boat first. Snorkel followed closely behind him.

“Oceana,” Jean-Eric called to her, “now isn’t the time to be staring into space.”

Oceana suddenly felt like crying again, a sob gripping her chest as she turned away to hand the final box over. Gently setting it aside along with their other belongings, Jean-Eric opened his arms to her and she stumbled blindly onto the boat, hugging him tightly.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. For what exactly, she couldn’t say anymore; all of her feelings blended together and made her head spin with the intensity of it all. Jean-Eric hugged her just as tightly.

“I forgive you,” he murmured, “and I’m sure Michael does too.”

As the boat puttered off into the horizon, Oceana swore she felt a set of eyes on her back, watching her leave Nineball Island for the last time, but it was probably just her imagination.

**Author's Note:**

> much love to everyone in our small but dedicated endless ocean community 💙 if it’s your thing, go to [the fan made wiki](https://endlessocean.fandom.com/wiki/Endless_Ocean_Wiki) and join their discord if you haven’t already!! we’re always looking for new friends :)
> 
> one final promo and then I’ll get off y’all’s backs: starting today (15 Nov. 2020) I'll be streaming some Endless Ocean Blue World gameplay [on my twitch channel](https://www.twitch.tv/ricecrispbees), and hopefully some of the other members of the endless ocean discord will be joining me. please drop in and say hi if you happen to come in time for it or for a future stream :D
> 
> thank you once again for reading this little story of mine!!


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